


Normalcy is Overrated

by LouEve_094



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Anxiety Disorder, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dissociative Amnesia, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Drug Abuse, Eventual Smut, Foster Care, Fucked Up, Hurt No Comfort, I'm so sorry, I've made the foster system really fucked up, M/M, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape, Smut, Suicide Attempt, Trauma, Underage Rape/Non-con, eventual comfort (I hope)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 04:42:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28932720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouEve_094/pseuds/LouEve_094
Summary: Your soulmate is destined, predetermined. The mark appears when they most need you. Akaashi has had his since he was seven, and that age enough frightens him. But the dreams they share frighten him even more. Anxious, stressed, yearning to find and comfort, he begins to search for the one who so needed him.Suga is stuck in place, in time – yet he changes homes every year, more frequently. And he's never gotten lucky. The only luck he has comes in a friend who hardly speaks, in his exact same predicament, who frequents the shelter he appears at. He only hopes to get out the loop of the horrors of his youth. But he needs help.Desperately.With nothing but dreams, a mark, and two souls made in tandem to connect them, Akaashi and Suga struggle with their pasts, presents and how to find their future together.(Heed the tags! This is not a drill! I'll be dealing with heavy subjects so be warned.)
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Sugawara Koushi, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	1. There's no heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh ok, 
> 
> First thing's first. This work was heavily inspired and influenced by mnb_luxe's Who Needs Normal? Honestly go check out their work if you like this – I for one found it really good (each to their own though). Also just a massive shoutout to mnb_luxe as well. 
> 
> Second thing's second. AHHH, I did not expect to write this, it just came out. But welcome I guess to this fic of angst and eventual love. If you have any suggestions don't hesitate to comment and this is very much un-betaed – but I'll die with no shame. Comments and kudos are appreciated, and I'd love to hear your favourite bits. 
> 
> Enjoy the first chapter!!

Soulmates always seemed like myths. To the five-year-old’s who manned the playground as if it were a sinking ship in roaring rain and ocean waves, soulmates were just big words and big ideas that adults threw around in the storm. And they were. Far off and mystical – after all it only really started to affect you in puberty.

Akaashi was different. He’d had his since he was seven – and he’d heard the housemaids whispering. He’d seen the stares, the cold hard disappointed eyes of his parents as they hissed for maids to conceal the _ugly_ marking marring the better part of his chest. _It looks like a Yazuka tattoo_ , they’d spat, _and he has_ _it too young. Too young._

You were supposed to get your marking when you hit puberty – the first time either you or your soulmate really needed someone, really needed help, really needed the other. It would appear on each other’s bodies in tandem, searing itself to skin like a tattoo, except it would never be removed. Skin grafts had proven that, scar tissue grew back in the same-coloured petals of someone who’d been stabbed. Seven-year-old Akaashi had seen the images online, fingers already lengthy and bony tapping away at the keyboard – as he searched for the meaning of his _‘Zuka tattoo_ _’,_ the key word shining on white screen ‘Marking’.

Of course, his parents hadn’t told him that. His quick keen ears had picked it up from the maid that had concealed it carefully. And he hadn’t bothered asking. Akaashi didn’t expect anything from his parents – even at that young age. He had never been pampered, never told ‘I love you’ but never told ‘I hate you’ either. Just ‘Try harder’ and ‘As the heir, you have to make the effort’ ‘You have to make it in this world Keiji’.

So, at his young age, he’d learned to be resourceful, and he’d learned how to Google things – which encompassed the majority of his resources. Apparently, according to an aesthetically pleasing blog with minimalistic block lettering for a title, and off-white background, you could contact your soulmate through your dreams. When you first got the marking, from that day on, every time you slept, everyone held a possibility of entering their soulmate’s dream and vice versa. Akaashi’s eyes had skimmed the page hungrily, devouring the information as it came to his sight.

There was no particular type of dream either – and you couldn’t control what you presented, or when you were pulled into one. They could range from happy commonplace dreams, filled with memories of happier days, or beautiful wants and wishes for the future to the darkest things your mind could conjure, repressed memories that swallowed everything except fear, dripping terrifying nightmares that had you sitting up in bed with sweat plastered to your forehead and screams still echoing around your room. Akaashi somewhat regretted reading this at night, on a very opinionated blog that seemed content to describe every single detail. But the weight of his new marking had pushed him further into his ‘research’.

His tattoo was, his marking, was quite large for the images Google had generated him – most small and in places like shoulders, wrists, or ankles. His was on his upper chest and the beginnings shoulder, with multiple flowing swirling black lines – never touching, never connecting, branching off in a near floral pattern, but remaining geometrically satisfying. If anything, the marking looked like flowing water, and nothing _‘Zuka_ _’_ about it.

And as he looked up markings and the meaning behind getting it young, his eyelids began to droop and his head began to loll and then he snapped awake to read the last sentence of another webpage, ‘ _Traumatic events, either sustained or jarringly abrupt, may trigger an early onset of mark appearance_ _’._ Too many big words he decided. It was too many, and he was too tired to find the dictionary his mother had place out of spite onto his desk. Placed there all because he didn’t top the class in spelling, as if he wasn’t learning, as if he wasn’t seven.

But he didn’t think about that. Merely turning the computer off at the wall and slipping under his soft duvet covers, the light already off. It had been off for hours.

And he wondered if he would dream.

But he didn’t. The next day he awoke, expecting it to be a dream but disappointingly finding reality instead. Reality and a scolding for staying up too late. Then after the scolding, the makeup was reapplied by a scared maid – who had listened in to his father’s disappointed _angry_ tones – and he was whisked away to his first morning class. It was a Saturday.

Akaashi just didn’t have time to think. Over the next year, he didn’t dream, neither dreams of his own, nor dreams of his soulmates. His parents hold on his life increased twofold with his emergence of second in Year 2. And he didn’t tell anyone of his mark. He didn’t dare, not after he found his dictionary and defined the words of that last blog post he’d read that night, not after he realised it could be another thing his parents shame him for. Because, fuck, it looks like a _Yazuka tattoo and it_ _’s right where we_ _’d_ _put our_ _tattoo on him, but it_ _’s not our fucking sign. Why did his mark have to manifest there? We can_ _’t have our heir sporting a different tattoo._

He never understood what his parents yelled about early in the morning over cigarettes and suited employees. Akaashi made it a point to avoid their presence, to do everything to the minute and never any more than what his parents expected, but never anything less – god forbid he do anything less.

One night, however, things changed. He dreamed for the first time in a long while.

But it wasn’t his dream.

_He was frozen. There was wafting scents of coppery blood, and a musk musty stench that spoke of rotting wood. He couldn_ _’t move, and he couldn_ _’t look around. Just feeling the increasing tempo of his heart, pounding, pounding. Louder. Louder._

It was horror incarnate. He was an observer from afar, yet the person of subject all at the same time. He saw everything from the other’s eyes, yet he observed the small shaking boy as well. Details were hazy, but the fear was anything but.

_In the dream he heard voices, disembodied, from far away sounding as if they were underwater, or he underground. His gaze shifted up, and he saw wooden planks above him, saw them sway and lurch and saw the shifting shadows and creaking._

Were they floorboards?

_He tried to scream, but his throat didn_ _’t want to. Not at the light that blinded him as the wood came up and a hand came down and the voices, now muffled reached his ears. Faces obscured, hand reaching out through the light._

_“You little piece of shit._ _”_

_“I put food on the table for you. This is how you repay us?_ _”_

_“Don_ _’t try and fuck around_ _…”_

_The hand blotted out the blinding light and he was thrust back into the ground, dirt, grime, and then he was screaming for help, blood curdling, heart stopping, shattering screams that crashed around them. And then more hands came down and he was screaming louder. Louder. Heart beating louder, louder._

_They were touching him. The scene shifted abruptly, and the boy was tied down,_ Akaashi knew, because he still couldn’t move, _somewhere._ A bed, maybe? It was hazy. _Hands. Hands were everywhere, more than he could count. And he could feel them. Really feel them. Hot. Cold. Creeping along his legs. And he was crying. Sobbing. Screaming again. And the voices started._

_“Shut up._ _”_

_“You know you deserve this._ _”_

_“Do you want to be punished again? Or are you going to be good for us._ _”_

_His field of vision was obscured as he drowned in the hands that clasped at him, the disembodied voices, the blackness of another hand shoving fingers down his throat, of one covering his eyes and another grasping at his throat._

_Everything went black. He couldn_ _’t breathe. He couldn_ _’t breathe. BREATHE. HE NEEDED TO BREATHE. DO IT_ _– BREATHE. SCREAM. STOP IT. STOP IT. BREATHE._

Akaashi jerked awake, trembling. No one was there to comfort him as his screams died in his throat, as his hands came up to caress his throat to make sure he was still alive, he was still breathing. He gulped air as if each breath could be his last, and after the dream he had – he didn’t know anymore. Tears fell in steady cascades of salt and emotion, of fear for himself and heart-wrenching sadness for a boy he’s never met. For his soulmate.

He crushed a pillow in his arms as he sobbed, wrapping himself around it in a semblance of a hug. Sobbed until he fell asleep, dreamless, but just as disturbed, tossing and turning and hating his helplessness. Akaashi was mature for a ten-year-old, pushed into life too early – but as he learnt that night, the horrors out there were far worse than anything he had ever had to deal with.

The next morning, he woke with a resolve previously absent, a cold poker face replacing the immature expressions, and a will to make it in the world. So maybe one day, one day he might find his soulmate out of the seven billion people on Earth, and tell him and hold him, and – well, Akaashi was ten, so he didn’t know what he’d do yet, but his childish stubbornness hardened into a resolve to do _something, anything_ for his soulmate.

**_Somewhere far away, where no one frequents, and no one can hear you scream_ **

From afar he’d look like a ghost, or at least a creature from another planet. Covered in dust and soot, and a grime that he refused to acknowledge. Bare legs crusted with a dark red something which he refused to recognise as blood – because then it’d start hurting again, and then he’d definitely start sobbing and then they’d find him.

It hurt. Everywhere.

Everywhere except his face, because it needed to be kept pretty, so no one will suspect. But he bit down at his lip regardless, because it’s pain that he can control – and it stopped his crooked sobs from tearing themselves from his lungs. Welts of red skin rose from the dust and the grit to rub together as he pressed his legs flush to his chest.

It stung as he shifted it his corner of the universe. Bare back rubbed against the rotten wood. It’s mulchy, must smell conjured memories of past experiences and his breath hitched. The boy watched the crack in the doors in front of him. Watching the shadows grow and fade, light hurting every time it comes back without warning. 

His hips ached from where he sat, and he wondered how long he’d been there. It felt like an eternity. Forever, and yet – for all he knew, it would only be a few minutes. When he shifted again, ache in his hips near unbearable, something spiked caught his back – his raw, red, exposed, bleeding back and he acknowledged that it hurt so it hurt more and he couldn’t distract himself from the sharp sting of pain that lingered. And he wondered if they could hear his heart pounding in his chest.

How long would it last?

The boy wanted to call out so bad, to trust the couple that had seemed so friendly at first, so caring – because he’d thought he’d finally found a set of foster parents that would actually look after him – but they’d all been lies.

Everything was a lie. And in the blackness, as shadows descended on the crack again, in the blackness, he couldn’t tell which way was up and which way was down.

And the worst part was, that this wasn’t the worst thing he’d been through. Because that threat still worked, and they knew that because he was obediently sitting in that musty, rotting cupboard under the kitchen sink, waiting for his punishment to be over. Because he didn’t want to go back – he refused to go back into the system, back to fruitless searching for decent people that want kids with dead parents, kids with problems, kids who can’t go a day without breaking down because they’ve never known a kind touch, and they’ve never known what it’s like to trust an adult completely, trust someone who isn’t one of them.

It was a loop. It always had been.

Dragged from the cupboard into light. Light which should’ve been good, but light he was afraid of after his last home, when they used light to condition him to do as he’s told. And the couple is patting him down, and giggling as they inhale the smoke from the haze in the room, and the boy is coughing. Then he’s slapped.

“Boy, you make a sound and we’ll stick you in there for another hour.” The man said.

The woman laughed – shrill and manic. Her eyes were wide but the boy didn’t know because he didn’t dare meet her gaze. The cracks on the floor were much more interesting then the cracks in her makeup anyway, “We’ll fucking lock you in. Or –“

She leaned in and breathed smoke into his face and it took all his willpower – drained though it was, to not cough and splutter. Because he can’t breathe and he wants to breathe, and he wants to cry but he can’t cry because if he cries then he’ll get sent back and they’ll pick up another kid to perfect their perfect family, a cover for their drug smuggling business, “We’ll just send you back. Do you want that huh? I’ve got friends in Miyagi, who would be more than happy to take in a kid like you.”

A twisted, gnarled hand snaked its way into his vision from where it had dropped onto the floor and grabbed him in places where he should never had been grabbed.

“They’re looking for a nice submissive doll like you huh?”

It was a loop. Two minutes later and he was back in the safest place of the house – in the cupboard under the sink, sitting in darkness and in pain, listening as they locked him in. When he dreamed that night, still under there, because that’s what the lock meant, and he’d been taught that after many punishments, when he dreamed, he dreamed fitfully, and he wished for someone to pull him out of his loop.

But as the weeks passed, and the months, and a year – with the same couple, with the same punishments, but punishments that grew in intensity as he grew in size, the boy feared he may never escape. And the words that his foster parents yelled at him, spat at him every morning and every night, began to carve themselves into him. So that, even when he chose to be alone in the hallway closet – because his room wasn’t safe anymore, he still heard their words echoing in his head.

And he feared, after all his sins, after all his punishments, transgression and the like, he feared there was no heaven. No heaven to follow the hell he’d experienced.


	2. There's no life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suga leaves his fourth home, enters the shelter. There he finds Tadashi and Tadashi finds him – and they find comfort in each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, I'm back 
> 
> This chapter is not AS explicit as the last, and I assume by coming back for another chapter, you're okay with reading this sorta shit. Can't really give out warnings, because that would spoil, but just remember the tags!

The fingers were cold, grasped around his upper arm, bruises already flowering. The social worker clicked her tongue from where she stood next to the horrible black car with the terrifying block print of the council’s snaking its way down the side. If it weren’t for the void that devoured his stomach, he would have thrown up.

He was scared. Goosebumps rose at the sound of a hot breath in his ear and heavy footsteps behind him as they snaked down the garden path – the man dragging him along. Because the threat still worked – and it did, two nights ago when they had found him curled up in the hallway cupboard, smeared dirt onto his skin, hands trembling as he tried to push the blackness into his eyes. All he wanted was to get away from the light. Away from it, away from the vulnerability he felt. Exposed for the world. He’d sat in the dark trying to make himself as small as possible. And the couple had pulled back, disgusted as he had tried to pry the door from their grasp, tried to close it, weakly trying to save himself. They’d seen the terror in his eyes as he was dragged to the light, and they’d called the social worker immediately.

But not for the reasons a sane person would.

The woman had broken down into crocodile tears, saying how it was too much, and how they didn’t expect it be this hard, and they were sorry but they wanted him gone. And, the worker had started accepted their story, getting into their car as the woman spoke into the phone, as the boy cowered in the corner – the man yanking on his hair to force a gag into his mouth, the whimpers dying against the fabric. And he had squirmed and tried to get away, but the man’s strong hand had held him in place, forced his gaze to meet the others.

“That’ll shut you up,” he had growled, slapping the boy immediately after, watching in sadistic fascination at the red that rose to the cheek. He’d slapped him again, again. Again. Until he was laughing and the woman was cackling and the phone lay discarded on the table and his cheek rose purple instead of red, “That’ll teach you. You dirty filthy little fuck.”

Even now in clear view of someone supposedly on the side of the law, he couldn’t do anything. Still being preyed upon. There was no one to back him up, he had no one to turn to. Not even tears came to him – a cold apathetic expression settling long ago. The man who dragged him, growled low and long. His favourite game was to excite expressions from the boy, and the boy hated it.

“Worthless, you hear me? You’re fucking pathetic. That’s why we’re sending you away.” The man held tight to his arm, keeping him just out of earshot sending a loud – _Just saying goodbye_ – to the social worker. His arms snaked around the boy’s body and it shook in the man’s hold, “Your parents didn’t want you either. That’s why they left you there. You’re a worthless piece of shit. And we have friends who’ll make sure you know it.”

And then the man let go, and his face immediately crumpled into one of sadness and grief and he patted the boy on the back, and the boy knew the man found pleasure in the way he flinched and coughed, stumbled towards the car. He didn’t want to go inside it. Because then he’d be questioned, then he’d be taken back to the shelter, back to the bright white clinical lights that made him feel like a bug being scrutinised, judged, and for his little seven-year-old body, that was too much. He didn’t want to go.

Yet even as his heart hammered in his chest and mind ran to a stop in panic, his feet trod out of the confines of the home he’d been stuck in for the past year and a bit. Because there was no hope for him to fight, he’d just end up in trouble. He’d learned that in his first home after his parents had left him – had the fight beaten out of him.

The car thrummed around him as he slid into the passenger seat, shaky fingers buckling the seatbelt. The social worker shot him an odd look, “Sugawara this is the fourth time you’ve been kicked from a home for being too difficult. I’ve warned you before, and I’ll warn you again – but you need to hold your tongue and consider your actions. A lot of couples are giving up a lot of their freedom to take you in.”

He nodded dumbly, refusing to say a word. It he retorted she would just talk more, and he wouldn’t be able to take this precious time to sleep. Suga’s stomach flipped, uncomfortably empty. He wanted to lean on the door and close his eyes – wanted to sleep, wanted to draw his legs up and clutch them tight to his chest in the position he’d had to hold for so long, in the safe confines of whatever cupboard the couple had shoved him in. Because the cupboard meant they wouldn’t take him out for a while, well it _had_ meant that. It _had_ meant safety. Suga wondered what new rules would be imposed in whatever new home he went to. He sighed.

“We’re transferring you and a few other boys to Miyagi.” The social worker interrupted er own rant to tell him that.

The words of his former foster parents still fresh in his mind, he froze. Was this one massive conspiracy? Was it – why? He didn’t want to speak, but he was seven. And seven-year-olds were notoriously curious, and his tongue, according to the last four homes, notoriously sharp, notoriously loose, “Why?”

It was the woman’s turn to sigh, flicking her blinker on and changing lanes smoothly. He wondered if that was just an excuse to not talk – or if she was simply gathering her thoughts.

“Crime rates have sky-rocketed, and there’s been an influx of children in the system.”

Suga wondered if this woman was even qualified, as he felt emotion restrict his throat gently – not sure what emotion it was, not sure why he didn’t feel like crying, not sure at all.

“So we’ll be moving you and some the less… _successful_ _…_ children to Miyagi. The home there is really nice. I think you’ll like it Suga.” She smiled kindly with thin lips that made her smile anything but kind. Suga wondered if the administrators that had given her qualification were blind. Was the smile supposed to comfort him?

After living so long around crocodile tears, fake smiles that turned sinister and manic the minute the public eye deferred, Suga wasn’t aware of how sharp his observational skills had become. It was a measure of self-defence that manifested in his rolling gut, coiling and curling and telling him, _she_ _’s lying, fake, impostor._ He didn’t trust her words, he had never like any home.

“Miss, can I put my feet up?” His question was quiet and fearful, as he felt his body pleading him to curl up and rest, as tiredness clouded his vision and wore down his rational brain which was telling him to do anything but speak.

The social worker hummed her consent.

The boy promptly fell asleep.

  * ••



**_Courthouse, somewhere in Miyagi, at the very same time._ ** ****

“Tadashi Yamaguchi. Thank you for testifying.”

He was five. Five and just spoke in front of a hundred people in broken not-yet-formed Japanese about the atrocities his own parents had committed against him. Murmurs of dissent come from the back, where reporters, civilians and the souls of his long-dead siblings watched. And yet, it still hadn’t been enough for a life sentence.

Because they said all the bruises and broken bones had stemmed from the intake of drugs. Heroine, and ice, and marijuana, and when they were sober, they would never. And Tadashi was five, so his words – even serious were taken with a grain of salt. Because as his mother had pleaded, he’d never had the best memory, never been the best with remembering places, names, dates – let alone events.

But they were gone now. For five years at least, or worse, at most.

And he was being ushered out of the building by his social worker, flanked by two big men that pushed away the reporters. And his parents were sitting there quietly still on that elevated podium staring down at his retreating footsteps. With fury and rage and cold hard malice. Emotions that would never fade, only fester. But Tadashi was five, and he was yet to know the danger he faced.

His new home, was more a house than a home, filled with others who had faced similar situations. Some were missing limbs – he rarely saw those ones, some were constantly angry and bitter and sullen – and he avoided those ones too, and some were quiet – he liked those ones, but most of them were loud and trying to make the best of their surroundings. Most of them were older.

Tadashi had been there less than a day when he saw the car roll up. His bed was next to the window – the social worker had listed it as something he needed, if the handprints around his throat were anything to go by – and for that he was thankful. The three other beds in the room were empty, and for that he was also thankful, able to open the curtains and the window to the late-night air and not get immediately told on by and elder.

He watched the proceedings with curiosity.

A boy, who looked older but not in a healthy way, stepped out of the car. In his little five-year-old eyes, with no filter placed on his brain yet, he could see that he looked uncomfortable. Stiffened when the car door slammed, didn’t approach the woman social worker, instead backing off slightly when she tried to walk towards him. They exchanged words, that didn’t float in the night air – so Tadashi assumed them to be heavy, and not meant for his ears.

And they began to walk, and the boy lagged behind. He lifted his head to survey the building and for a second Tadashi froze, wondering if he should even attempt to hide, but it was too late as the eyes caught his and the boy lifted his frown into a slight smile. Slight shaky smile, as if he didn’t know who he could trust. Tadashi grinned back, and waved happily, feeling his face pull at how much his mouth curved up. The boy’s smile from way down below, in the dim streetlight, seemed to steady and it widened ever-so-slightly.

That was their first interaction.

And boy, it wasn’t their last.

Tadashi, never permitted friends, was eager to make some – even in his shy, nervous state, and so was ecstatic when his door opened at the same woman social worker walked in, the same boy he’d waved to trailing behind. The boy’s meagre belongings were placed in the bed beside Tadashi’s and the woman bid him farewell, “I don’t if we’ll see each other again Sugawara, but I wish you luck in finding a home.”

The boy didn’t say anything back, but nodded. The door slammed shut behind the woman and both of them flinched. Tadashi’s hands flew to his ears and Suga clasped his hands to his mouth. Their eyes found each other’s threw the throw of panic that clutched at both of their hearts. Each beat louder than the last. But then, it stopped, as their thoughts wrestled and were won by the realisation that there was no one but each other in the room.

Tadashi peeled his hands from his ears, “Is your name Sugawara?”

Suga nodded, but didn’t take his hands from his mouth, but loosened them – Tadashi could see the white of his hand turned slightly flesh-coloured again. His eyes stayed fixed on the door, and he watched the shadows move. The light that shone through the crack in the door danced, mocking him.

“Can I call you Suga?”

That broke his stupor, broke him from his raging thoughts. His voice was croaky as he tested it, and it was quiet when he spoke, “S-sure.”

Suga cleared his throat and tried again, “What’s your name?”

The other smaller boy on the bed by the window blushed slightly, cheeks tinged pink. No one had ever asked him that – well, no one except for the judge in court today, “Tadashi Yamaguchi.”

“C-can I call you T-Tadashi?”

“Mm.” Tadashi nodded his head fervently, eagerly. His eyes shone as he looked up at the elder boy, craving some form of emotional connection, “Do you think we can be friends?”

Suga froze. Though he had begun school in Tokyo, though his foster parents were obliged to send him _somewhere_ , he’d never been friends with anyone, never had friendship thrust upon him in his fashion. A warm feeling bloomed inside him – something he’d never felt, a small seedling of trust, of hope for a life he might actually _want_ to live.

And they were friends. Fast friends. For the next few weeks, they stayed at that home, slept in the same room – sometimes after bad nightmares Tadashi faced, after Suga woke up sweating and panting and screams dying in his throat, sometimes they’d sleep in the same bed. They were each other’s crutches to mend a broken life. And for a while it worked.

Tadashi, in quiet whispers in the dead of night told Suga how his parents had strangled him to shut him up. Suga, in soft murmurings told Tadashi how one set of foster parents had nearly blinded him – how given him the fear of light, so he would stay inside the house, stay theirs. They told each other their gruesome stories, so that they would know when the other regressed. Know, and be there to help.

In the short reprieve they had, they learned to forgive the others intricacies and oddities. Tadashi didn’t mind the little ‘hole’ Suga had constructed in their cupboard – he merely placed down more blankets previously clenched in chubby fists. When the boy flinched as he opened the door to remind him of dinner, Tadashi didn’t care, just lowered his voice and softened his tones. Likewise, Suga grew to accept Tadashi, taking the younger under his wing. In the mornings when the boy awoke grasping his throat, pressing in the same patterns Suga had first seen him with, the older did nothing but slowly ease them from his neck before the bruises could flower. When Tadashi entered the mess hall, surround by other bodies and began to panic, Suga would quietly drag him away, reminding him that no one could hurt him, rub away the phantom pain of a knife digging between his small shoulder blades.

Exposed in so many ways, but sheltered in one, their bodies were beautifully bare of the mark that would come when they hurt the most. They were ignorant to fate’s wishes of a worse future, because their hopes relied on a better one. A better one which, when a new social worker called out Sugawara’s name during their leisure time plunging him back into the fear that had given his old foster parents so much leverage over him, a better which he feared would never come.

It was a loop – and he was stuck. Not even his new friend could help him escape.

A year later and Suga returned to the dorm to find it empty, no one to talk to about the new mark on his chest. When the social worker pressed for questions, he didn’t speak. When the home’s psychologist sat him down on a hard couch and waited for him to break apart, he didn’t. Not even the other kids could dent his hard façade – even if their eyes pierced him in curiosity every time his overlarge shirt fell to expose the beginnings of his mark. There was only one boy out there that he was willing to talk to, and for all he knew – Tadashi would be getting the same treatment as he did.

Sweet Tadashi, with his big smile and understanding eyes, his chubby hands and chubby cheeks that still spoke of a youthful innocence even if his shaky hands did not. Suga wept into the crook of his arms, chest aching, on his best friend’s former bed, and with each shuddering breath, the emotions emptied and his fight left.

Even as the idea of a soulmate entered the picture, Suga knew it was hopeless. The picture he was born into was burning, and the knife that he’d so easily slipped from the kitchens burning in his hands, the cuts burning in his arms, the tears, hot and heavy, burning in his eyes. There was no life left that he wanted to live. The little thread that had held him together through his first four shitty foster homes had snapped in his fifth. Fifth, and hopefully – if the blood spilled the way it should, the final.

There was no life left worth living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Sup, 
> 
> Sorry for the pain that I've caused y'all, more angst will be coming next chapter as well. We'll probs see some more Tadashi and introduction of Tsukki. Also, in case this was confusing anyone, the first part of this chapter happened a few years before Akaashi got the mark – and the end part after Suga returns is a few months after the mark appeared. 
> 
> Anyways, drop a comment on your favourite part, and anything more you want to see in the coming chapters. My personal favourite bit was Suga and Tadashi being soft with each other and becoming firm friends. Oh yeah, and that bit at the end with the picture metaphor. 
> 
> Forever writing Suga angst,  
> Lots of love,   
> Lou


	3. Only Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tadashi meets Tsukishima, and Suga moves on to a new home against his will. But they don't forget each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all in for a world of hurt.   
> hehe.

Tsukishima didn’t know his parents were fostering until the doorbell rang and he opened it to another kid and an elder woman glaring down at him. To be fair, he was five and his parents had every right to keep it secret, but it didn’t mean the little kid was happy with it. Neither was the other kid it seemed.

His bag was small, and it looked empty – and the eyes that peered up at him, for Tsukishima was quite tall for his age of six, were wide and fearful, but bordered on curious as well. It was an odd mix of emotions the youngster hadn’t really been exposed to yet.

He called to his parents, long, loud, a whine that brought his parents to the door, out of breath but both of then smiling gently down at both him and the new little kid. The kid looked up at them and returned a soft smile back, which had his parents cooing and Tsukishima scowling. Who was he to come and take his Mum and Dad’s attention off their work and off him?

But even as he smiled, the boy refused to leave the social worker’s side. The woman begrudgingly entered the house for a tour, Tadashi clasping her hand. He didn’t have the same distrust of adults that Suga had, and this woman had been with him since the first trial in the court case. The thought of Suga crossed his mind, and his hands twitched, and his head began to hurt in a way that was only relieved when tears began to drip down his face.

The social worker knelt beside him, “I know it’s tough to go to a new home Yamaguchi, but please try okay?”

Tadashi shook his head, “I want Suga.”

“Suga?” The woman looked over her shoulder, to see the blond-haired couple staring worriedly back. She tiled her head slightly and they nodded. The other little six-year-old boy by their side looked confused at their seemingly telepathic conversation. She turned back to Tadashi, big fat tears now wetting his face.

This was a new place and it was scary. He’d only ever been to four places in the entirety of his remembered life – with his parents, the psychologist he’d begun to see a few days prior had told him not to call it ‘home’ anymore; the markets, which held memories that if he spiralled into would have him seizing up in seconds; the court house, a day which seemed hazy in his memory at the best of times; and the shelter with Suga. The only person he felt truly _safe_ with was Suga.

“Do you mean Sugawara, your dormmate?”

He nodded, sniffling.

From somewhere distant he heard someone say, “Lame.” And a lower voice quietly scolding the first.

“Even if we go back, he won’t be there. He’s gone to his new home, like you’re going to yours, okay? You’re just like him!” The social worker could see the fear – not lessen, as it may have in others – but loosen. Ever present and ever potent, she could see the reason reappearing in his wide red-rimmed eyes. Speaking of his idol seemed to help.

But the woman was wrong, because Suga wasn’t his idol, and neither Tadashi Suga’s. They had decided to be brothers – because the word brother was fickle yet fantastic in their mind, foster brother thrown in and out all too easily, but brotherhood speaking of a bondship that would always last. And they wanted to last. If not them, but their friendship – be it in life or death. Though that pact came much later.

Tadashi nodded slowly, “If I stay here can I see Suga?”

“Sure Yamaguchi,” The woman smiled thinly. That promise was a promise she didn’t intended to keep, “Are you okay if I go then? I’ll come back later this week to see how you’re settling in. I promise.” That was a promise she intended to keep – mostly because her contract dictated as such.

Again, he nodded, another tear dripping from his eye and onto a wobbling lip. And the worker stood up and without a second look behind her strode for the door. And just like that, Tadashi was alone, again, in a new place, with new faces surrounding him – and no smiling silver-haired boy to keep him sane.

The week was rocky, the oddities he displayed, his insistence to be near a window at all times, his panic when the family suggested going out – it stunted any relationship he’d begun to form with the adult couple. But the kid, whose name he couldn’t really pronounce, nor remember, _Tsukki...Sucki_ _…Shyma_ _…Tsukkishima_ or something, had been surprisingly accommodating. Tsukki, the nickname he’d practically forced upon the boy, didn’t question him – and that was enough.

Even though his tongue was sharp, and his snide comments sometimes hurt (just a little bit), Tadashi didn’t get discouraged easily. He’d just bite back, something equally sharp, equally demeaning, equally childish and stupid. And then Tsukki would do that weird half-smile for a split second – that Tadashi came to interpret as an amused, happy face, and they’d go back to whatever they were doing.

The meals were nice as well. And Tsukki’s parents were lovely and they tried to understand. So did Tsukki’s older brother Akiteru, but the boy was older and scarier and Tadashi flinched whenever he spoke too fast or too loudly. Only Tsukki made a note of that.

He turned seven at that house. And he turned eight there as well. The weight on his shoulder began to lessen slightly, and he and Tsukki grew closer, until the latter became his shoulder to cry on when the nightmares resurfaced, until the latter became the one, he went to whenever he was feeling happy, or sad, or excited, or angry at the world and himself. Tadashi learned to express himself again, and he seemed to cry just as much as he laughed.

Which is why Tsukki wasn’t exactly surprised to see him sobbing into his arms when he got home from his tutor session, sitting in the hallway. Not surprised but he was concerned.

“Yams… are you… where’s Mum and Dad?” He asked tentatively, not good whenever Tadashi was being extremely expressive like this – but used to it. He was used to the violent mood swings that ever so slightly younger boy had.

“On the phone.”

“Are you, are you okay? Is something wrong, has something happened?” He was also eight, so the questions just tumbled out – despite the fact that Tadashi was very much not okay, and something was definitely wrong and something had definitely happened. Tsukki dropped his bag by the door and knelt immediately, hands shifting just outside the other’s comfort zone. Tadashi didn’t like to be touched – he liked to initiate it. Was always the one to initiate it. So Tsukki waited for permission.

And the sobbing boy fell forwards into his embrace.

“It’s Mum and Dad.”

“Your birth parents.”

Tadashi sobbed into his shoulder, and Tsukki could feel the bone of the chin move against his collarbone. He wrapped his arms around Tadashi, “Can you tell me?”

“They got out. And they want to see me.”

“Is that why Mum and Dad are on the phone?”

“Y-yeah.” He hiccupped, and pulled back – and Tsukishima let him go.

He shouldn’t have let him go. Not when the social worker came to pick him up. Not when he returned a day later with tears stagnant in his eyes, and small purple something snaking around his wrist, not when for the next eight months on a fortnightly basis he’d visit them – his birth parents. Ones so insistent on seeing him, on battling their drug addiction, on being apparent ‘model citizens’ who just wanted to see their kid again.

He shouldn’t have let Tadashi go.

  * •• 



Suga lay in the isolation ward of the shelter, face down on his bed, staring listlessly out of the plastic encased window to the bleak sky above. His chest ached with weight he wished to relieve. He wanted scream and run at the wall and sob and cry and shake and feel something, anything, to be reminded that he was still human and still alive and still worth something to somebody somewhere, but he didn’t. He didn’t have the energy to. He felt nothing. Weighed done by nothingness.

His sixth home had been a short two-week trip, more of a vacation than anything. The family that had tried to stay by his side and show him support had fled that night, scared at the lack of response, and then the over-response as they’d tried to drag him from his closet – his hands closed around the wooden door trying to pull it shut, yelling and screaming and fear, nothing but fear overtaking his system as his mind flashed back to the horrors that had happened a few months prior.

He’d seen them, and he’d screamed at them to get out, to get off, to stop, to stop – Suga’s thoughts spiralled as he remembered his past. And frantically, he tried to block the thoughts from overflowing. Not even tears pressed at his eyes anymore, he had no energy to do anything but fight the noose that threatened to tip him into black abyss.

That warm inky blackness that felt like an old embrace was the reason he was in the isolation ward. Was the reason the walls were padded and the knives he ate food with were plastic. Good enough to fashion a shiv, but not worth the effort.

He lay still on the bed and fell into a restless sleep.

That night he dreamed.

_He was back in that house._

They’d found him in his comfort spot in the cupboard and revelled in the fear he expressed when they had dragged his small, somewhat malnourished body out.

_Back in the_ _‘hidden room_ _’, hidden beneath the door in the floor, stuck in the rotting room of his punishment. It was dark. He felt his heart in his chest, louder, louder, louder. Throbbing. Blood trickled from his head where he knew he_ _’d been shoved._

Suga rolled over in his sleep, tears squeezing out, as the phantom pains prickled his skin.

_Voices. Floating as if on clouds. Pulled his stomach from his mouth in fear. Heart throbbing, louder. Pounding. The door in the floor creaked and the shadows shifted_ _– he couldn_ _’t scream, rope rendering him silent, rendering him still. He squirmed._

_Don_ _’t. Don_ _’t. Please._ The words spilled from the sleeping boy into the empty room.

_He could feel eyes on him, something shifting and uncomfortable and his chest ached slightly. But there was no time to ponder this addition to a nightmare, as the light blinded him. Wood lifted, and the hand came down._

_Not just a hand._

_The hand._

Suga screamed into the night as his dream clutched at his heart, as he felt the ghosting touches. Heard the voices created by his mind, aided by his memory. Too real. Too real.

_“You little piece of shit._ _”_

_“I put food on the table for you. This is how you repay us?_ _”_

_“Don_ _’t try and fuck around_ _…”_

“No… no...” He moaned in reality – in the dream he remained frozen. Or if was able to speak, no one heard him, not even himself.

_The hand blocked out the light, and he saw the sadistic smile behind it. Thrust back into hard dirt, and he was screaming. Screaming for someone to help. Screaming for reprieve. Screaming for them to stop. His heart beat louder, as more hands came down, pressed themselves to his skin, louder, screaming louder, heart louder, blood curdling in his ears, groans and grunts acid against them._

_Touching him. Everywhere._

_The scene shifted and he was back there. Back in that room. That fucking room. Tied down, struggling. They were touching him. Hands groping, grabbing soft mounds of flesh, pulling at places still tainted by bruises from beatings earlier. Hands, more than he could count, more than he could see. Suga could feel all of them. Really feel them._

_His skin hot. Their fingers cold. Curling. Creeping. He was crying. Sobbing, screaming. And the voices overpowered him again._

The screams he sent to the world in pleading agony were silent, throat hoarse. The sheets he slept under tangled in his legs, sweat plastering him to the mattress as he moaned and spasmed weakly.

_He could feel eyes on him, pitying him, sharing his pain. And he could feel eyes on him_ _– the conjurers of his worst nightmares, the gatekeeps of his horrid life_ _– playing with him, toying with him. His screams rose in a cacophony of raw sounds._

_“Shut up._ _”_

_“You know you deserve this._ _”_

_“Do you want to be punished again? Or are you going to be good for us._ _”_

“I’ll be good. I’ll be good. Don’t hurt me.” Whimpering.

_But they didn_ _’t stop. They intensified. A wave of hands, and pain. Fingers twisting flesh. Fingers inside of him, curling and_ _– a hand to his throat. Blackness of another covering his eyes and another cramming fingers down his mouth. Choking._

_Everything was black. Choking. Gasping against disgusting cold flesh. He couldn_ _’t breathe. He should_ _’ve been used to the feeling. Too exposed. Couldn_ _’t breathe. BREATHE._

_Someone was laughing._

_BREATHE. HE NEEDED TO BREATHE._

_The hands didn_ _’t stop. The pain only grew. His eyes watered. Choking._

_DO IT_ _– BREATHE. SCREAM. STOP. STOP. STOP IT. BREATHE._

He gasped awake, trembling fingers wiping at tears that spread down his face, doing little to stop them, only spreading. Swallowed, tried to wash away the remnants of the nightmare, only to find his throat dry, hoarse and scratchy – from screaming. Suga groaned and fell back on the bed, then decided against that – too similar, too, too similar, then sat up and edge until his back was wedged into the corner of the walls. Pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself.

Making himself as little exposed as possible. Just as he’d learned.

Suga didn’t want to go back to sleep. He couldn’t. The nightmare would only return, twofold in intensity, as it did every night. He sobbed into the crook of his arms.

Was the only time he felt something after he’d had a nightmare? Was the only time emotions decided to grace him with their presence was when he felt the bone-chilling fear of his past creep up on him?

Tomorrow they were going to review the tape the camera had filmed, where it sat disgustingly obtrusive in the corner of the room – they’d take him to the sickeningly sweet contracted psychologist and have him sit and rewatch the clip of him moaning and screaming and pleading. Suga hated it, he hated the intrusive questions of – “What happened?” “Is this about your birth parents?” “What do you think you need to do to make this go away?”. Never helping. Always asking him to think. Use precious energy to think, when he didn’t even have enough energy to snap a plastic knife in half and drive it into his neck. And that would only take thirty seconds.

But the next day they didn’t do that.

And even the next night when the nightmare repeated, they didn’t follow it up.

It was odd, so one morning on the way to the bathroom – because he had to be escorted, lest he try something unwise, he broached it. Suga’s voice was hoarse, and rusty from disuse, always refusing to talk.

“Um.. Miss,” He stuttered, eye downcast, hands fiddling with the hem of his shirt. He didn’t dare look up, in case it angered the staff member, in case he got slapped.

“What is it Sugawara?” She asked, kneeling down to look him in the eye. He didn’t meet her gaze, eyes fixed on the floor. Her voice was kind and sweet, but fake, and he’d heard that tone before. He nearly bailed completely, memory warning him of all the possibilities that could follow. But he had to ask.

“When I dream..” Silence for a moment, he took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts. No. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t ask why they’d stopped asking. He couldn’t because then they’d start again. Suga struggled to find the words to play off his half-question, struggled to divert his train of thought. His mind threatened to spiral, his chest threatened to tighten, “um.. I… uh… hope you don’t mind… but I.. um… when I dream I feel someone watching me.. do.. do you know why?”

The question was disjointed, and poorly phrased, poorly worded, but the woman understood. The woman understood that this was a perfect time. She wrinkled her brow in mock concern, masking it effortlessly. Her stomach coiled as she watched his young features shift around his different expressions. As an inkling of trust spread itself across them. She smiled sagely.

“Are you feeling okay? We might have to take you to the hospital Sugawara. Get you checked out.”

“NO! No hospital. I don’t want to see them again.”

“Who, your social worker?”

Suga nodded, tears welling in his eyes. This lady seemed nice, and he ached for a human’s touch after being sanctioned in the isolation ward for so long. Some of the emptiness lifted at her kind smile.

“What if I take you. And we keep it as a secret.”

In hindsight, that was a red flag. In hindsight, most events of Suga’s short life were red flags. But he nodded, because he was nine, and though he trusted no one, it in his nature, in his biology as a human being to crave connection. And the lady smiled as he called her miss and walked with her to her car. He didn’t have any belongings. He didn’t have any friends that would miss him. He didn’t have a family. He was perfect.

He would soon know her name. Suga would become hers.

Orphans went missing all the time.

No one would look for him.

And so, the damaged boy, traumatised by his past, was stolen, forgotten, caged once again. And Tadashi, having spent two years healing in a family too good to be true, was sent back to the couple who birthed him, who broke him. After that fateful few weeks, and the years that passed – it seemed to the both of them, stuck in their individual hells, that they would never lay eyes on each other again. But they never forgot their friendship.

Because that was their strength. Their flickering candlelight guiding them in the dark.

They’d been in hell before after all. What was another home that hurt? It was all Suga had ever known, all Tadashi knew he deserved. There were a lot worse things that could happen. The years ahead of them were long, dark, willed with cobwebs – no light glimpsed, but they had three weeks of light in their past – the time they spent together – and they reasoned with themselves, it could be a lot worse, at least… 

..it was only hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys,   
> I'm not exactly experienced writing these sort of topics, so I'm sorry if I've accidentally caused offence by my portrayal of the foster care system, justice system, mental health etc. These are my own interpretations and portrayals and I am drawing from some (albeit small) personal experience with these types of feelings (not topics, just feelings). 
> 
> Anyway, now that that's out of the way – drop a comment on your favourite part and any angsty things you want to see in the future. Also whose perspective would you like to see next? (I'm thinking of jumping a few years into the future so we can see them going to school. I don't want to linger too much here. Also I need a name for Suga's captor and Tadashi's parents (I'm reallllly bad with names so I'd love some help lol). Also in the coming chapters I may include some Akaashi and Bokuto going to school and explain some more about Akaashi and his own unique upbringing) 
> 
> Lots of love,  
> Lou


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